Valletta, capital of culture, part 1

There should be something happening every day. That's one of the propositions put forward at the meeting I attended about Valletta as EU capital of culture in 2018.

That will be the easy part because it's already happening. Even the physical infrastructure is already in place and there are certainly artists producing high quality work here in Malta. What will need a lot of groundwork and imagination is community engagement in art production, not just consumption, and contemporary artwork that challenges the status quo.

I want to give a brief glimpse of what's already happening by summarising some of my cultural activities over the last couple of months. Rather than give a chronological list, I'll group according to some of the cultural venues that are currently in use in Valletta.

I have to start with the churches. Not only are they the hub of the year round programme of fiestas, exhibitions and processions, but now they also play host to lunchtime and evening concerts. Sometimes these are associated with fund-raising projects such as the restoration of the chapel of St Catherine of Italy. The model of lunchtime concerts that was adopted here with the collaboration of St James Cavalier has now been emulated by several other churches in the capital sometimes with the effect of direct competition for audiences.

The restoration of St Catherine's is now nearing completion and perhaps in the spirit of community cultural development, the programme has been reduced to Sundays only and is currently held in the Music room of St James Cavalier. For several years, their programme has raised the profile of the venue, played a major role in raising restoration funds and seeded the idea of high quality lunchtime recitals. Now other venues can capitalise on this foundation and offer their own programmes. So over the past few weeks I've attended lunchtime recitals at St Paul's Anglican Pro-Cathedral (every two weeks on a Tuesday), a beautiful evening concert by Malta's only male voice choir, Cappella Sanctae Catharinae at the Jesuit Church in Merchant Street, and next week I'll take a friend, visiting from UK, to a lunchtime recital of Baroque music at St Francis church in Republic street. Unfortunately, the two lunchtime recital venues are now competing so I have to choose which to attend.

St James Cavalier, or perhaps I should name in particular violinist Sarah Spiteri and pianist/composer/bass singer Alex Vella Gregory, play a key role in much of the cultural activity happening around Valletta. They run their own lunchtime concert series, Performers Platform, on Wednesdays in the Music Room, but also serve as a hub for information and bookings.

St James is a multi-arts venue. The brilliant restoration of the old Knights' cavalier includes several gallery spaces showing top quality work by Maltese artists and sometimes expatriate artists with links to Malta. For a while, Malta Contemporary Art found a home in the upper galleries, but for some reason they have moved out this year as I learnt when I attended the first lecture in a series called Contemporary Art in Dialogue with... organised by Dr Raphael Vella of University of Malta at St James Cavalier.

In part 2, I'll talk about the other cultural spaces in St James Cavalier and get on to the other venues around Valletta.

One last carnival

Next post I'll return to words but photos are good for carnival!

Dressing for carnival 2011

And then he said....

Carnival 2011

A new venture - a photo blog for my nephew in NY who wants more photos!

Augustinian convent in Naxxar

I'm on my way out to St James Cavalier to see the new play, Immaculate. I just wanted to see if I could put up a brief post with more than one photo. The first one is the corridor of the Augustinian convent. Now I'll try another photo and see where it goes.

So it goes on the top above the first one! But I quite like the grandfather clock going first. Refer to yesterday's post for text about these two photos. Interesting white light in the convent!

Museums, Convents and Palaces

Did you know immediately who this woman was? And whose head she is so casually holding out to you?

Thus do we turn horror into everyday.

The statue is Salome with the head of John the Baptist and I think it is in the Parish Museum in Naxxar.

Already Sunday's tour with Malta Council for Culture and the Arts is blurring together into generic images of religious museum artifacts - clerical robes, ancient books of music, iconic paintings- and chapels - gold leaf, domed and vaulted ceilings, christ crucified. Malta is so richly endowed with historical collections that it is impossible to hold a catalogue of even one morning's exploration in my head.

Nevertheless, the two places we visited in Rabat surprised me. The Augustinian convent is not normally open to the public. We were shown around by one of the seven monks for whom this beautiful cloister is home. The convent is massive with wide, stone flagged corridors around a central court, a huge, wood paneled refectory and a grandfather clock bigger than any I have ever seen complete with its own ladder beside to enable adjustment. It is a contemplative order and the convent certainly provides room to think! Yet the small living room shared by the seven residents has ordinary armchairs facing a TV, and there is an enormous laundry with white and brown habits hanging on a rack to dry.

Casa Bernard is also in Rabat and was the C16 home of a Maltese noble family. It is still lived in today and has been restored and opened to the public. I will return there and enjoy one of the guided tours that they offer Monday to Saturday with a smaller group than we had on Sunday. The family has a huge collection of French and Maltese antique furniture and their modern art hangings include a Dali and several Dinglis.

The streets of Rabat were already decorated in preparation for the feast of St Joseph this coming weekend. But Sunday morning was cold and rainy and it was difficult to appreciate the exteriors of the chapels and museums as we trudged from bus to entrance. For the next tour to Fort Manoel, Selmun Palace and tas-Sultan Castle in Wardija, I must take a note book so I can remember more of the full commentary given by our English-speaking guide.

Gozo in brief

It's wild flower season in Gozo. On Friday and Saturday of last week, it was sunny and the garigue and meadows glittered with deep greens and the yellows of fennel flowers, daisies and sorrel. The photo is of a rubble wall on one of this weekend's walks with Malta Ramblers.

On Friday morning I had an English language class with a young woman from Hamburg. We set off together on the journey to Gozo because when we were practicing conditional clauses she revealed that if she were to return to Malta, she would like to visit Gozo.

I always underestimate the travel time. We lingered at the news agent in Merchant street and that made us miss the bus that might have connected with the 11.15 ferry. As we waited for the next bus, two other friends arrived who were also joining the Ramblers on Gozo for the weekend. We stood next to the 45 bus (there were several 45s and no-one had revealed which was to leave first) and chatted in the sun. History might reveal that this was the beginning of a fascinating EU project involving older women and craft!

The crossing was calm although still cold from the plummeting temperatures we have had lately. I left my friends to deal with negotiations for the taxi we planned to share to get us to Xlendi and guided my student to the Green bus for her tour of Gozo. The arrival of the ferry in Gozo is always as confused and bustling as the arrival of ferries everywhere. Taxi drivers vie for trade and visitors try to look as though they know exactly what they are doing.

In Xlendi, the whole world was sitting in the sun on the sea front. My brother, who now rents a small flat in this small fishing village, had booked me into St Patrick's hotel. He has made this hotel on the front his hang-out and spends many hours here enjoying the life of the bay or chatting with people inside the bar/restaurant when the wind is up. On Friday he was feeling miserable because he was having trouble with his teeth and couldn't find an available dentist in Rabat to deal with it.

I left him to continue his dental quest and joined the Ramblers for their afternoon walk. The planned circular route lead out of Xlendi, past the knights' tower and along the cliffs towards the channel we had just crossed from Malta. We then headed back through Sannat and down to Xlendi along the side of the valley running down from Rabat As soon as we got going, I had to peel off the multiple layers of clothing that I was wearing against the cold.

The cliffs along this side of Gozo are magnificent - weathered and jagged, white and shear - and the garigue sparkled with the blossoms of small heathers and wild flowers.

That evening, I enjoyed dinner with my brother who had not solved the dentist problem but had worked out a holding pattern with his tooth until he could deal with it the following day. We ate at St Patrick's with one of his friends and discussed the complexities of family and the world.

Saturday's walk was planned as an 8 hour marathon but my intention was to leave halfway through and return to Xlendi to meet up again with my brother and pick up my overnight things ready to return to Valletta. I had booked in for the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts Sunday tour and that will be the subject of my next post.

This time we left from Rabat and I just managed to catch a lift to the starting point after breakfast with my brother. We walked down through an interesting little valley in the outskirts of Rabat and then up some very steep inclines. I'm not sure where the route went but we passed through some lovely countryside as we appeared to walk in a large circle around the citadel. Eventually we came down along the cliffs into Marsalforn. It was sad to pick out the spire of the old church now completely hidden by the engulfing blocks of flats that surround the sweep of the bay.

I left the group at that point and joined with others who needed to finish the walk there. We shared a minibus back to Rabat and then I got a lift down to Xlendi to meet up with my brother, now shorn of two teeth but feeling much better. We lingered over lunch and I got back to Valletta late in the evening.

There continues to be discussion about various means of speeding up the journey to and from Gozo. Ideas for airstrips and bridges and tunnels and chairlifts are bandied about. For me, the journey is part of the pleasure of Gozo. Turning Gozo into a suburb of Malta with the inevitable increase in cars and blocks of flats would be a disaster both for the people of Malta and Gozo and for the tourists who visit Gozo because it is different from the built up Northern areas of Malta.

Return to Malta

I'm back in Valletta. It's wild flower season in Gozo and the cliffs to the South of Marsalforn are glowing with colour. This is a promise for tomorrow.

The photo was taken at Christmas time in St George's square in Valletta.

Gozo revisited

The photo caught a strange moment of light that made the cliffs around Xlendi float in the sea.

A brief post to satisfy my effort to write something everyday. Tomorrow, after teaching my class in the morning, I'm off to Gozo until Saturday. I'll be staying in Xlendi and walking with Malta Ramblers. I'll write about it when I get back.

An issue of gas

These ranting statues are in Gozo. They are in a group of four arranged in a line along a side wall as though the parishioners couldn't find anywhere to put them when they were renovating some part of the church. I came across them on one of my rambles out of Xlendi.

Today I want to have a bit of a rant about the gas. The last two days have been cold. I put on more jumpers but still needed to use the mobile fire that takes small cylinders of gas. The gas fires are sold in hardware or furniture shops and are often advertised at reduced rates. In addition you have to buy a regulator, often from some other shop and then two cylinders of gas - one to change and one in use. Once you are set up with all the necessary equipment and have worked out how to put it all together, you then have to find out what day your gas delivery truck comes around and hang out on that day waiting to hear him arrive in the street below.

Lately, there has been lots of grumbling about the rising price of gas, the risks associated with having trucks roaming around narrow streets filled to capacity with cylinders of gas and the confusion arising from another competitor entering the field with different coloured bottles and a different distribution system. More alarmingly for individual consumers, there seems to have been an increase in stories about faulty cylinders being delivered to households. My neighbour has told me horrifying stories about gas explosions in the past and just a few weeks ago there was a letter in the local paper about a man whose gas cylinder caught fire. Another friend told me about her experience with a gas bottle that was overfilled and so wouldn't light her fire even though she could smell gas.

So yesterday afternoon, I have to change my gas bottle. I take off the old bottle and attach the new. There is a smell of gas, the pilot comes on but the filament won't catch. I switch off and ponder my options. I try to remember the details of my friend's experience. What did she say she did?

I have to phone the gas company. OK, I have a way forward. I phone. I am told I am third in the queue. I wait. Eventually, a pleasant woman comes on and asks how she can help. I tell my story. She tells me that the technician will call me on the phone and when he does I should follow his instructions because if he comes to the flat and finds that the problem is not with the cylinder but with the fire or the regulator I will have to pay E20. Already I feel like it is my fault because I am not a gas technician.

The gas man calls at 8.00 pm. He asks if I have another gas bottle. No, I have just finished one bottle and the new one isn't working. Do I have another gas heater? No. Do I have another regulator? No. Do I have a gas cooker? Yes! At last we are getting somewhere, but where? It seems that I have to take my new cylinder to the gas cooker, take off the regulator from that cylinder, attach the new one and see if the cooker works. Weakly, I tell him that the cylinder for the cooker is on the roof so I will have to carry the new, full cylinder up two flights of stairs, work out how to make the switch, come back downstairs to try the cooker and then go back up again to change it all over if it doesn't work. I'm certainly not going to do all that in the middle of the night.

"But madame," he says, "I'm just trying to save you E20."

"Maybe I'll try it in the morning," I mumble, feeling vaguely that already I have lost the battle.

This morning after breakfast, I consider the problem and decide to have a go. I struggle up onto the roof with the cylinder and put it down next to the cooker cylinder. I contemplate the regulator which is different from the one on the heater. I have no idea how it switches on and off or how you remove it. I decide I am late for an appointment and hurry out to get the newspapers. On the way, I try phoning the company but there is another queue.

When I get back, I feel strong enough to phone the company again and point out how ridiculous this situation is. This time I am prepared for the queue and start reading the papers. When the same young woman answers I explain that there is a safety issue involved here, that it is difficult for me to lug gas cylinders around and downright dangerous to be messing around with something that I don't understand.

"But madame, he was just trying to save you E20."

By this time I have moved into my icy logic phase. I suggest that it looks like gas is becoming far too risky, that if we find that it is not the cylinder at fault but the heater or the regulator I will have to make the decision to stop using gas all together and he can take back the full cylinder, the empty cylinder, the regulator and the heater in lieu of payment. The woman says he will call me.

I wait at home for a few hours and then have to go out to teach my class. When I get back I phone again to make sure he hasn't tried to call when I was out. No, she will call him again and remind him.

Round about 5.00pm he calls again. This time he suggests that the regulator is incompatible with the gas bottle, that instead of the blue regulator, I need a green one.

"How come it worked before?"

"They wear out"

This time I am asked to go out to Birzebugga to get a new regulator, try that and if the gas bottle still doesn't work he will come out and it will cost me nothing.

"By then it will be summer and I won't need the gas heater."

I know that we are going round in circles, that I should not be talking to the technician about company policy on health and safety, that it is not logical to have a technician whose job is to look for one fault only and anything down the line must be self-diagnosed, that I am not going to resolve the issue before this cold snap ends.

So now I'm writing this with layers of jumpers plus my blanket that I've made into a poncho, a useless, full bottle of gas sitting on the roof, an empty bottle that I am reluctant to refill in case I get another dud, a regulator that is incompatible and a heater that is just an empty shell. I really wish I could find an alternative heating system that won't bankrupt me, but I also feel that there is a more general issue here that should be dealt with. The problem is finding where to start. Perhaps if I find the person that both the woman on the phone and the technician on the phone connect with...

Wind from the North

The wind rose noisily last night and is still blowing from the North so the waves are crashing over the breakwaters on both sides of the harbour entrance.

This morning I met two friends, Christina and Roger, who are visiting Malta from London, and showed them around the walking route outside the Valletta fortifications that has become a regular part of my life. Today it is dramatic and wild and we had to dodge flying spray at several points on the route.

We started the walk by taking the temporary metal steps that have been built at the side of the entrance to City Gate. This scaffolding structure is part of the Renzo Piano renovations going on at the main Valletta entrance and also the EU funded work around the fortifications. I wasn't sure where the steps went so it was an exploration for me as well as my friends but, as I guessed, it lead us down into the ditch outside the walls and from there it was easy to walk down to the Marsamxett side of Valletta. Once past the landing point for the Sliema ferry and round to Jews Sally Port we were free of the parked cars. During weekdays this whole stretch of ditch is used for the vehicles of the Valletta workforce.

The rest of the walk was wet, wild and windy and I was a bit anxious at times that my friends might be swept away by a freak wave. But we made it round easily past the bridge to the breakwater destroyed in World War 2 and the rusting mechanism for the harbour boom defense. From there, dramatic steps and metal walkways lead to the informal fishing village where there is a mural of C20 battleships on the rock carved out by the knights. We came up the steps at the back of the Mediterranean Conference Centre, formerly the knights hospital and from there it is an easy stroll to my flat for coffee.

I've written about this walk in some detail because I am scouting it for Malta Ramblers. I figured that I should start giving something back for all the pleasure I get from living in Malta so one of the things I'm going to do is volunteer to lead one of their walks. I admire the work they are doing in speaking up for the conservation of what is left of the Maltese countryside. Along with other NGOs, they are beginning to change the way people here in Malta think about how we use and abuse the countryside.

The photo that heads the post is of a Xlendi sunset. This weekend the Malta Ramblers are visiting this fishing village in Gozo and I'll be going over to join them on their Friday and Saturday walks. My older brother has also come to live in Xlendi so it will be good to spend some time with him as well. The photo was taken when I was over there for Christmas week last year.

Editing the past

This sad lion is somewhere in San Anton Palace garden, I think. If I discover at some future date that it is somewhere else in Malta, I can come into the post again and edit.

I wish it was so easy to change the past in the light of new facts that emerge in the present! But except for spelling and grammar, if I decide to edit or add to one of my posts over the past few years I will put in the date of the later additions. My effort for today will be largely devoted to adding some reference details to my posts on Barriera Wharf and Valletta, EU Capital of Culture.

Valletta has been buzzing with carnival this weekend and through until tomorrow evening. The streets are packed. Small witches, cavaliers, court ladies, super heros are everywhere. They ride in strollers and on shoulders, they clutch adult hands or strut independently, they chase each other through squares and side streets. People who have to work complain about the traffic chaos, the float builders complain about the change of route imposed by the work on City Gate. Yet once again the floats and costumes are totally extravagant in colour and form, the marching bands are loud, tourists and locals jostle to get the perfect photo, the roadies guide massive floats and grotesque puppets through the throng without breaking too many papier mache finger nails.

This is my third carnival so I no longer pay for a ringside seat to watch the dance competitions and the parades but I still love the surprise of flamboyant costumes at every turn and massive floats slowly progressing past Valletta balconies and ancient coats of arms.

This week I'm one of the workers. I have classes every afternoon and at the weekend I'll be going over to Gozo with Ramblers Malta. So I may have to renege on my daily posts even before I've completed a full week!

A blogging life

I have been thinking about blogging. So much has happened in my life since I retired from paid work and started the blog in 2008. Yesterday I looked back over some of my early posts and felt glad that I now have something of a record of this changing and final phase of my life. The most interesting ones now are those where I have wondered about personal change, about the challenges, joys and anxieties of living my own life. The factual, historical blogs are useful for remembering the things that have happened but some of them are a bit long and are probably boring for other people to read.

I realise now that blogging is not like keeping a diary because it is immediately public and I have no control over who might read it. That is an interesting discipline to put on my thoughts and my writing. In more recent posts since coming to live in Malta, I have surprised myself by posting the poetry that occasionally comes into my head. Perhaps this is a way of putting some order into a jumble of thoughts and feelings. But usually I have tried to make each post about a particular topic or experience with a photo that somehow alludes to the theme but may not be directly connected. Perhaps the photo is a way of suggesting all the silences that always surrounds words on a page. I have no idea why I have chosen one of the silver roosters that sit on the formal dining table at San Anton Palace to head up this post! Perhaps it is the reflections in the table top.

I am trying to bring some order into the deluge of experiences of the past six months so that the blogs I put up are readable. I won't be doing it chronologically and it will be impossible to include everything but I will try and maintain a discipline of writing something everyday. At least until I start on the next book!

Barriera wharf

Today I walked over with a friend for lunch at the Valletta Waterfront. I've walked along the Grand Harbour waterfront a few times during the past weeks either coming back from an expedition to a large furniture shop in Marsa where I found my new lounge suite or looking for a back way to the bus terminus displaced by carnival which in turn has been displaced by the work on the new City Gate.

The waterfront has been busy with ships making the run from Libya carrying foreign workers fleeing the upheaval. Sometimes there have been coaches parked waiting to transport people onward to the airport. Today, a South Korean warship was tied up in front of Brown's restaurant. I had watched it come in earlier this morning. The ship has been used to bring 36 South Koreans out of North Africa. In the tragedy of Libya, Malta is once again serving as a staging post for people displaced or damaged by war.

But I wanted to talk about the Barriera wharf which stretches from below Lower Barakka gardens near my flat, under the bastions as far as Victoria Gate into the city. Here, towards the end of their sojourn in Malta, the knights built a lovely curve of stores to service the wharf area. Halfway along the curve of the stores there was a small chapel that served as an open air altar for people being held at the quarantine station. From the small barriered area of wharf the quarantined travelers could see and hear what was happening at the altar.

During the British era, the middle section of the stores, including the chapel, was demolished to enable maintenance of the bastions. The fish market was also built in front of the right hand section of the stores so the lovely sweeping vista around the edge of the harbour was lost. Most of the stores are now derelict but there is talk of demolishing the fish market which is no longer used and putting in another cruise ship berth. I feel very positive about the idea of exposing and renovating the curve of the stores, but to then mask their beauty with another massive block of floating flats...

All part of the vibrant life of changing Valletta!

07/03/11. I am indebted to architect Joanna Spiteri Staines who has completed her masters thesis on the Barriera wharf. She has published an article in the Times of Malta, 20/02/11, and presented a lecture at Din l'art Helwa in Valletta on 24/02/11

The photo was taken from Dingli cliffs.